Making a decision about whether to take a child away from its family is never easy but it's a regular dilemma for experts at the St John's Family Resource Unit in Bristol.

The unit is at the forefront of child protection work and deals with some of the most dysfunctional families in the country.

The dedicated staff at St John's Family Resource Unit do not talk about successes. Instead, they prefer "outcomes".

It is their job to assess difficult families and make recommendations about their future - independently of local authorities and the courts.

This can mean the difference between children being removed from their families or staying with them.

If the child or children stay with the family, it could be deemed a success, but on many occasions, the highly-trained staff have to recommend that youngsters are removed.

That might not seem a success but the wellbeing of the child is their prime concern.

Removing him or her from parental care, would, in their opinion, be the best option.

So the measures taken are deemed an "outcome" rather than a "success".

The charity, which works closely with Social Services departments, social workers, the courts and other agencies in order to prepare children and parents for independent living in the community, is based in two anonymous converted Georgian houses in Bristol's inner city.

It has 11 units of accommodation so it can cater for a wide variety of families. As one of only four or five such units in Britain, its services are in heavy demand.

The placements involve individuals from a broad social spectrum including parents with learning difficulties, psychiatric problems, personality disorders, anti-social behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse problems and many others.

In many cases, the children have been or are already the subject of court proceedings and now attempts are being made to reunite the family in a structured safe environment.

Chief executive Gordon Davies said: "We are at the very heavy end of child protection.

Families who come to us really are in the last chance saloon, in danger of having children taken from them, the family being broken up.

"We have two priorities. The first one is protection of the child or children, the second one is to try and ensure the families leave us as a viable unit. These two are sometimes inclusive, sometimes mutually exclusive.

"For some children, the best outcome is that they are removed from the parents' care. For some children, a success will be that they are adopted in to a good adoptive home."

Between 50 and 60 families attend the unit each year, involving up to 70 or 80 children. Mr Davies estimates that about half of the families leave St John's "intact".

Staff at the unit adapt their work according to the needs of each family, setting up individually tailored care plans. These can be carried out in the unit or in the community.

The minimum assessment period at St John's is 12 weeks although most families stay for a least four months. The longest has been about 18 months.

In the community, assessments can take a week or a fortnight, but are much more intensive, often involving spending eight hours a day with the family in question.

Work at the unit can range from teaching simple parenting skills, to anger management, family budgeting and other seemingly "run of the mill" daily skills which some find difficult because of their problems.

About 40 per cent of the families referred to the unit are referred by the courts. Some families have tight restrictions placed on them while at St John's to ensure the child's safety.

This can range from 24-hour supervision to "keeping an eye" on the family.

Although the work is intensive, St John's provides a range of informal activities for parents during their placement.

There are social evenings and residents' meetings once a month, weekly art and cookery sessions, and photography sessions.

There's also a rolling programme of fire safety and first aid courses, day trips, picnics, and trips to local places of interest.

Staff even provide a baby-sitting service for parents allowing them to have up to two nights to themselves each week.

The unit is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It has 18 full-time staff and runs its own "bank" of 10 staff on whom it can call if necessary.

Because of the specialist nature of its work, the team is multi-disciplinary and from a variety of backgrounds with different qualifications and skills.

These include social work, psychology, nursing, nursery nursing, occupational therapy, human ecology and business management.

Each member of staff is encouraged to develop a specialist skill in the field - which could be drugs advisory work, anger management, family therapy, HIV and AIDS advice, eating disorders, loss and separation work, grief counselling, baby massage, therapeutic play, arts and crafts, child welfare, domestic abuse issues, or sexual abuse counselling.

Mr Davies said: "We are at the leading edge of a lot of the fields of our work and are leading the way for a lot of other organisations.

"For staff it is very demanding work, very pressurised work. I have nothing but admiration for my staff - sometimes they have to work in a very dangerous situation, but they are hugely committed to the work and to the families."

Because of its ultra-low profile, the charity doesn't attract many donations, it merely sells its services to the courts and to local authorities.

Despite being an expensive resource, its services are constantly in demand. For this financial year, its expenditure was expected to be about £850,000.

Mr Davies said: "We are an expensive resource, very specialist - there are only four or five such units in the country.

"But, we're a not-for-profit organisation. What we charge is what it costs.What's that cost in terms of a child's life?

"In the short term it may seem expensive but by keeping a child with a family instead of long-term fostering or adoption we can actually save local authorities a lot of money, as well as enhancing the quality of that child's life."